Just thought I could get a discussion thread going. What is everyone playing lately?
I just finished playing Metal Gear Solid Delta, it was great! I decided to play through the series finally after years of watching video essays on the game, and I’m glad I did! I played Metal Gear Solid and Metal Gear Solid 2: Subsistence through emulation (4k HD for the win!) It was a great experience and I can see why the series is so highly venerated. It holds up remarkably well, and the long cut scenes were really enjoyable. I thought it would be annoying, but I actually found myself looking forward to them. Delta was like jumping forward in time 30 years, but still extremely fun. I’m glad they stayed so close to the source material so I could just play the new release instead of booting up Snake Eater through emulation.
Now if I could just play IV without a PS3, that would be awesome. I might have to try emulation on that, but from what I read, the experience isn’t great.
Regardless, now I’m replaying Max Payne 3. This game IS SO FREAKING GOOD. I had forgotten how good it is. The noir narration is just amazing. The gameplay is tight as a snare drum. The art style and visuals are still amazing even when compared to modern games. Rockstar really knocked this game out of the park. I still haven’t played Max Payne 1 or 2, and maybe I should. Also, I found out that one of the bands I’ve recently discovered and have been listening to like crazy, Health, did the score for Max Payne 3. The music is fantastic. If you haven’t played it, I highly recommend giving it a go.
Other than those games, I plan to play through The Last of Us 1 for the first time soon. Not sure how “retro” it is, but I think it is borderline given the original release date and hardware. Looking forward to trying it for the first time. I’ve never had Sony consoles, so I’ve missed out on a ton of first-party Sony games over the years. Trying to make up for that by playing modern PC releases and through emulation.
So yeah, what do ya’ll have going on right now? What do you recommend playing and why?
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Dude! I was so fucking surprised at how well Max Payne 3 still holds up. Better than most shooters nowadays.
It’s unreal. Just the feel of the game is amazing. Modern gaming is great and all, but something about that 6th/7th generation just hits. It was like the perfect mix of player-focused design and modern tech. There’s a lot of games with amazing potential nowadays, but they are ruined by silly design choices like always-online implementation or micro-transactions. The games from the 6th and 7th generations are just so feature-rich and laden with game modes and statistics tracking that it’s disheartening to see how far we’ve regressed in those areas in modern games, seemingly all in pursuit of making the walls have 5% more fidelity than before.
3 was great on it’s own merits as a game, but the noir elements were ratched way down compared to the first and second.
Max Payne 2 was… I dunno… damn well perfect for what it was supposed to be in the era it was developed with the technology of the time.
Really? I thought 3 was heavy on noir, but then again, I don’t have much experience with that genre. I really should play 1 and 2 when I can.
I’m pretty sure if you played mp2 in an empty sealed room for 14 hours straight you’d somehow come out reeking of whisky and cigarettes.
🤣
I probably played Max Payne 2 from start to finish three or four times. It’s superb.
Balatro till I’ve beat it
I’ve been on a Balatro kick lately too! My nightly routine is to play Mad Skills MX 2 and do all my versus races against my friends, and then boot up Balatro till I fall asleep. Good stuff. I’m working through doing all the red stakes challenges right now. I’m on the Telescope? deck. I think that’s the name of it.
🙌
I’ve beaten all decks on red stake and all challenges. Now I’m working through them to get them all to gold stake. I’m shooting for completionist++, but I have a feeling I’ll get through all the decks and just not want to get gold stake on all jokers. That part sounds brutal.
Yeah you’re light years ahead of me. I’m still figuring out new strategies and stuff. Like, there are certain hands I pretty much never play because it never seems to line up for me. Straight flushes, four of a kind, and trips are the hands I play the least. But I’m finding new ways to increase my score all the time through combinations and different ordering of jokers. It’s been really fun to discover.
Straight flushes, four of a kind, and trips are the hands I play the least.
Yeah those hands are in a kind of middle ground where they are difficult to compose, but don’t scale well enough to necessarily be able to build around.
Like, its way easier to build around flush or straight; you can guarantee yourself the ability to get those in a given blind. And so for those hands, you can augment with jokers/ scaling mult to win.
And hands like five of a kind, flush house, five of a kind flush, the value of these hands is so much higher, you can make a run at ante 8 just through scaling those hands (not even worrying about jokers, just through deck management). I mean this is basically what you have to do to win Jokerless.
So those hands sit in a middle zone where you’ll have to throw economy at them (costing you the ability to build/ manage your deck, or to buy jokers/ rerolls), but alone, they don’t scale well enough to get to a victory.
The challenges are really good for learning because they force you to play in manners you wouldnt’ normally.
Playing the original God of War for the first time via the PS3 collection. I’m also chipping away at Mario Picross 2 (Gameboy) on my Retroid Pocket 4.
The God of War series is on my list of “to play” games. I’ve played about 2 hours worth of the first modern GoW game, but nothing else. I’m going to start on the old ps2 games and work my way through.
As far as PS2 games go, it’s very playable by today’s standards. Controls are a bit funky but easy enough to adapt to.
Glad to hear that! I’ll have to move it up the list so I can get to it. Thanks for the recommendation!
I’ve had the OG GoW ISO in my collection for years, still yet to properly try it. I know it’s good but just need to find a time and the right mood for it and not get distracted by anything else…
Max Payne 1&2 still hold up I think. The upshot of using comic book style slideshow sequences instead of cutscenes is that it’s aged really well. Story, mood and atmosphere is great in both and I think the gameplay is still pretty decent. Keep in mind 1&2 were Remedy games while 3 was Rockstar, so they will feel noticeably different for better or worse. Most Max Payne fans will say it like: Max Payne 3 is a great game, it’s just not a great Max Payne game. It doesn’t have that Remedy touch, it isn’t good at the things that made the first two so special. Amazing 3rd person gunplay though.
Speaking of, there is a Remedy-themed Humble Bundle online right now with their whole catalogue minus Firebreak for like 30 bucks. Not a bad way to get your hands on MP 1&2. Pretty remarkable value, although with the two caveats that Alan Wake 2 is (1) only playable through Epic and (2) coming to PS+ next month if you have that platform and service.
Good to know! Thanks, homie.
I’m definitely going to play 1 & 2. The love for them is overwhelming. I wonder if I’ll feel differently than others due to playing 3 first. That’ll be interesting to find out.
Hey friend, cheers for the thread. I’m strangely happy and relieved to have found something chill enough to engage with in the midst of all the crazy political drama around the place.
I’m glad you’re enjoying Max Payne 3. I liked it too, though It had to grow on me, especially after having played MP1 and MP2. The first one especially blew me away even when I played it for the first time back in 2008 - its combination of beautiful, prosaic noir writing, the modern incorporation of Norse mythology, and innovative (for the time) gameplay, among other traits, continues to make it stand out amongst the rest.
- If you get to play it, I’d highly recommend checking out the PCGamingWiki page for the fixes to help it work better in general and on modern systems.
Currently, I’m playing RoboCop: Rogue City and Schedule I. Playing on both sides of the law by the looks of it, haha.
- Rogue City is a great experience as far as faithfully adapting the dystopian, mega-corporatised, hyper-violent world of RoboCop to the gaming screen;
- Schedule I has you build a drug empire through a surprisingly addictive (heh) gameplay loop of producing and distributing different types of drugs (I found myself staying up til 4AM while crafting all-new marijuana strains with kickass names like the Ninja Witch).
I’ve also been revisiting old PS2 games on PCSX2 emulator. Currently replaying:
- WWE games - Here Comes the Pain, and SvR’06/07 (peak of the franchise, imo)
- Dog’s Life - the adorable yet disturbing, fantastically scored, janky GTA-flavoured canine adventure still entertains.
Glad to have you here to chat with us! I tried to play RoboCop twice now, but couldn’t get into it the way I had hoped. It seemed like a really well-made game, but I think that either I wasn’t in the right headspace for it at the time or maybe it’s just not quite what I’m looking for. It’s one of those games I feel like I should like, but just don’t yet.
I’m getting so many recommendations to go back and play Max Payne 1 & 2 that I’m going to prioritize them in my next round of games.
As for wrestling games, the two I owned were WCW-NWO Revenge (N64) and WWF Warzone. Both were interesting and I still go back and play them every once in a while through emulation. I really like the mechanics for WCW-NWO Revenge. It’s the best implementation of grapple controls I’ve played in a wrestling game. The rest is a bit rough around the edges, though.
Thanks! Yeah, totally understandable about RoboCop RC - it isn’t without its flaws and is certainly rough around the edges, one would have to be a big fan of the franchise to forgive all the bugs. Thanks to the mods that bring back the original movie SFX, the game feels much more immersive. A major hook to play it for me is Peter Weller returning to voice Robo, if anything I’ll try to finish it for that reason alone.
I hope to try out that WCW-nWo Revenge game, sounds interesting. My other one I’d like to try would be WWF No Mercy, it’s still touted as the crème de la crème of wrestling games and there’s a loyal and active modding community for it to this day, amazingly.
Wow, I didn’t know about all that for RoboCop. If I’m honest, I’ve never actually watched the movies. I know… I know. I should have by now. Especially considering I’m a big fan of dystopian cyberpunk type stuff. Maybe after I give it a watch I’ll be more interested in the game.
I’ve heard about No Mercy being the king of the hill, but I haven’t tried it either. Warzone was… not great. lol. I much preferred WCW-NWO Revenge of the two. Those are the only two I owned back in the day, so I mainly boot them up for nostalgia purposes.
When you say No Mercy has a modding community, are you talking about a PC release of some sort or romhacks?
(better late than never 😁)
I’m not sure on the details (am yet to delve into it proper), but from what I can spot it is 64-based so looks like it’s through an emulator and with asset/texture packs. Likely similar to PCSX2’s texture mods
Very cool. I’ll check that out when I have time. Thanks!
I’ll have to look into the mods, I bought RoboCop RC on deep sale this summer but haven’t gotten around to it yet. Despite being a somewhat janky AA game it looked cool and seem to have gotten quite good reviews so I’m looking forward to it.
It is quite decent indeed, what I love is the solid, passionate attempt at faithfully adhering to the source material, paired with the courage to expand it authentically.
Where Rogue City needed more immersion is the sound effects. The sound carries the first film as almost its own character, and it’s no wonder it won the Special Achievement Oscar. Most of the mods I have installed for the SFX are from Nexus, and replace the sounds of Robo’s steps, Auto-9 gun, HUD, targeting, punching, breaching, etc., with their original movie versions. There are other mods out there for RC, but imo those classic sounds are absolutely essential for the RoboCop experience.
I can’t stop playing Enter the Gungeon, this is a cry for help. /hj
Also I decided to try Flashback again (Genesis version). This game always seemed really cool but I never progressed far on it since it’s so unlike anything else from the era. Kind of surprising more indies don’t take a crack at this formula.
I’ve never heard of Flashback before. That game looks sick! I’m huge into sci-fi and cyberpunk stuff, so I think that might be right up my alley. Thanks for the suggestion!
Finished up “my friend Pedro” a couple of weeks ago (absolutely recommend if you haven’t played it, especially with a high refresh rate screen), played control for a bit (interesting beginning, but the more you play the more confusing/boring I found it), and been revisiting doom eternal since I just upgraded my PC about a month ago. I was planning to play it through with the dlc expansions, then maybe try cyberpunk after. Also been intermittently playing “golf with your friends” when I have game night, pretty fun to play with friends and doesn’t take too much effort.
Hard agree on Control; didn’t dig it at all.
I mean, the graphics were pretty impressive and the beginning premise was interesting, but after 3hrs I just kinda got more bored as the plot isn’t cohesive at all and figuring out where you need to go is actually rather annoying after a bit. I played a bit more than 3hrs because surely it would get better, but it didn’t seem to be so I gave up.
Control was not my piece of cake either, but playing the Ashtray Maze sequence without knowing what I was going for was one of the most exhilarating gaming moments I ever lived.
Agreed, it’s something I’d like to slice out of the game and experience again but the rest was such a slog.
Max Payne 3 is an an amazing. If you like slowmo bullet time stuff you might enjoy"My Friend Pedro"
I’ve seen My Friend Pedro a couple times in various places. Maybe I should give it a shot. Thanks for the tip!
Megabonk and Balatro. And I’ve just finished Max Payne 3! Really liked it!
I find it funny how I seemingly randomly decide to play an old game and then find out a bunch of others picked it up around the same time as me. I wonder why that is? Maybe we all got inspired by watching the same video that included a clip or something. Who knows?
But yeah, I’m really enjoying it too. This is my second playthrough. I beat it once a long time ago when I bought it, but don’t remember much about it. I’m trying to collect all the golden gun parts on this playthrough. I have like 5 or 6 of the guns done. I currently at the escort part right after the bus escape.
Finally picked up Hades II now that it’s been officially released and I can enjoy it with all its polish. Already got 30 hours in and can’t wait to spend more time tonight. The music is just constantly stuck in my head now.
I’ve been playing OG Hades for a few days through GamePass. I started it a long time ago but never got very far. I really dig the game and its music and writing, so I’m going to give it the ol’ college try to at least make it out of the underworld once. Game is hard, yo!
It gets easier as you learn how to use the boons and weapons and other fifty dimensions of stats to optimize or adjust your build and play for your goals / whatever challenges get presented to you. Your character gets stronger as you acquire buffs the more you play, so the real trick is to just keep playing (as long as you’re having fun). I seem to recall there being a bit of a hump at the start before the ball really got rolling; the sequel seems to have leveled this out a bit better, perfecting the already well-made formula.
I’ve definitely gotten more comfortable with it. I’m able to beat Meg fairly consistently now, but I always seem to die a couple levels into the next location. Can’t remember the name, it’s full of lava.
Asphodel
This is cool. I’ve never heard of it before. Seems like the kind of thing my fiancé would dig. I’ll have to show her.
“Time Cannot Be Stopped” might be the greatest game over chant of all time.
Finally playing Silent Hill 2, which is scary as heck. (Try playing it with the sound off and your controller vibration on for a bit.)
Still playing Noita a lot.
Also DMing weekly campaigns on Neverwinter Nights.
Noita
I’ve seen footage from this game in a bunch of different places from the YouTube creators I watch but never knew the name. I might have to check that out. It looks really cool, even if it isn’t a genre I typically get into.
I find it to be great fun.
Is it as prohibitively difficult as I’ve heard it is?
There is some difficulty, yes, but you can read the guides on Steam to get some help in mitigating that. I’ve died hundreds of times playing it, but some of them are legit funny, like the time I used a wand to summon a black hole, not considering that it might suck my wizard in too.
Oh, there are also some helpful mods now.
The Amiga version of Alien Breed 2. Bitch is hard as nails in a coffin. In comparison the Alien Breed trilogy on PC on hardest difficulty is a walk in the park.
I’ve been playing First Contact Protocol for the GBC and it’s really good!
You know, I should really explore more of what the gameboy color had to offer. The only games that ever saw playtime on my lovely teal GBC were Pokemon Gold, Yellow, and TCG. I still play TCG from time to time through a GBC emulator on my phone. That game was excellent. Its also the only Pokemon games I’ve ever enjoyed. After Gold, it was just too many damn pokemans to keep track of and I lost interest. 151 was plenty. 251 was more than enough. After that, it’s too much for me.
Yeah, there’s so much good stuff released for GB, GBC, and GBA recently! My picks are Goodboy Galaxy, From Below, First Contact Protocol, Glory Hunters, Inky and the Alien Aquarium, Apotris, Pokémon Unbound, and Unearthed!
Wait, recently? There’s still active development going on for those handhelds? That’s nuts! I had no idea.
Yup, I’m even waiting for a GBC RPG called Infinity due out later this year! There’s also NES and Genesis games in the works too!
Not so much SNES though, cause it’s hard to code for.
Very cool. Thanks for cluing me in. I’ll have to look into it.
Resident Evil 7. The last game I played was RE5 and I really didn’t enjoy it. It’s been years but I played the remake of RE2 when it came out and loved it. Picked up 7 and 8 during a recent steam sale. So far RE 7 is shaping up to be one of my favorites in the series.
Resident Evil is one series I’ve never been able to garner the gumption to get into. I played about 30 minutes of RE4 remake through GamePass and it’s just not for me, I believe. I’m not a horror fan anyway, but was hoping the gameplay would draw me in. Maybe I’m just missing something.
I’m sorry to hear that but I totally get it. Horror games aren’t for everyone. I haven’t played the RE 4 remake but it’s on my list! Gamepass is great for exactly how you experienced RE4. Unfortunately for me it’s made playing games a bit like picking out something to watch on Netflix. Just too many options.
Tell me about it. Choice paralysis can be a bitch! Throw in steam and emulators, and I’ve never been short of things to play. Sometimes, it’s just hard to determine what game fits the current vibe. I’ve found myself getting into narrative-heavy things lately and really enjoying them.
The thing about GamePass for me, is being able to try out things I would never have otherwise. The most recent for me was Clair Obscure: Expedition 33. That game was the most amazing entertainment experience I’ve had in gaming, maybe ever. I’m so glad I got to play it. Never would have had that opportunity without GP. If you like rpg’s/jrpg’s at all, I highly highly highly recommend it. It was the first jrpg I’ve ever played and it had me totally enthralled.
It drive me nuts sometimes. I used to spend about 20 minutes a night looking over my game library thinking about what kind of mood I’m in. Lately I have been trying to stick to one game at a time but it doesn’t always work out either.
GP is great for trying out games. It has already saved me from buying a few games I ended up being disappointed with. But I’ve also been really surprised by games I didn’t think I’d enjoy. I have heard a lot of good things about Expedition 33. I’ll give that one a go after I finish RE7!
